


holidaymaking

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Honeymoon, Islands, Love in the Time of Horror and Misery, M/M, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 20:36:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20570510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Simon and Casey left Newark on the 22nd on a two-day flight to Saint Viola to stay at a tiny eco-resort there for two weeks on their long-delayed honeymoon. The world was on fire and everything felt like it was on the bleeding edge of destruction, but surely that could be ignored for the two weeks, right?





	holidaymaking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roguefaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguefaerie/gifts).

Simon and Casey left Newark on the 22nd on a two-day flight to Saint Viola to stay at a tiny eco-resort there for two weeks on their long-delayed honeymoon. The world was on fire and everything felt like it was on the bleeding edge of destruction, but surely that could be ignored for the two weeks, right? 

Casey didn’t like to fly and so spent the majority of flight on Ambien, and Simon used the time to watch every show he’d ever vaguely been meaning to watch on his phone. Neither of them paid any attention to the news. 

The island, once they’d landed on it, was remote and lush -- no more than ten holiday-makers were allowed to be on it at any given time. Simon thought he could spend the whole two weeks on the beach, gathering interesting-looking shells. That was exactly what he did -- until that time when he found a hand washed up on the beach. He had assumed it was a dead jellyfish at first -- until it started crawling toward him. It was far, _far_ too bony to be a jellyfish. 

He yelled and fell over. It was Casey who came over to see what the fuss what about, and it was Casey who took a piece of debris from the ground and hit the skittering hand into the sand until it stopped moving. 

The couple looked at each other afterwards. “All right,” Casey said, looking pale under the brown of his skin. “What the hell is going on?” 

Back in the resort they were staying at, there was an ancient black and white television. Satellite and cell phone reception on St. Viola -- due to natural phenomena that frankly, Simon couldn’t understand -- wasn’t reliable. But they did get programming from New Zealand, and from there, they learned the truth: the zombie apocalypse had finally happened. 

Along with Simon and Casey, there was Yibai and Andrew, another pair of honeymooners, as well as Aleki, the son of the resort owners’ son. Aleki’s parents had gone overseas that week on their own vacation. Trying to call their families and friends did no good -- no one was reachable. The outside world was completely unreachable. They were alone - together. 

Well, until the tides of the dead reached them. 

Every morning they came. 

Sometimes, it was easy to dispatch them: a hand there, a leg here. Other times, Simon could swear that the zombies that emerged from the surf could almost communicate with him. But it was impossible -- they couldn’t possibly be alive, their skin lacerated from barrier reefs that surrounded the island, their heads barely connected to their necks and their necks to their trunks. Simon wasn’t very good at blowing away the more complete zombies, but Casey and Yibai were. 

But still, it seemed like together, they would be able to survive until help could reach them -- until some cure could be found. Simon had always thought of himself as a basically optimistic person. This couldn’t be the end, could it? 

He looked out to into the beautiful blue-green Pacific Ocean, the gently curved beachhead, the sand, white like sugar -- except for the rotting bits of flesh that hadn’t been carried away by the surf. It wasn’t such a bad place for the end of the world, was it? 

“The water’s going to run out, you know,” Casey told Simon one night as they were fortifying their sleeping quarters. Simon was immediately concerned. 

“What do you mean?”

“Aleki told me — usually they get shipments of water coming in on a monthly basis but of course since then uprising, nothing. He reckons with stockpiles and gathering rainfall and some reservoirs, we can last six months or so — but.”

“Shit. And here I thought we were in paradise.” Simon made a face. “I’m an idiot, I know.” 

“You’re not,” Casey assured him. “I know you miss your kids. You have to remember that they’re doing their best like you’re doing yours.”

“You really think a bunch of kindergarteners in New Jersey are surviving the zombie apocalypse, Case?”

“You gotta hope, Si.” 

“Yeah,” Simon agreed, leaning over and kissing the tip of Casey’s nose. “Thank you for that.” 

“No problem.”

“Did you ever think about this when you were training to be a ranger? You know, best ways to survive the zombie apocalypse?”

“No, I always thought about defending myself against bear attacks and preventing forest fires.” Casey chuckled. “I thought about it. Always figured it was in the realm of sci fi though.”

“Little did we know,” Simon said gloomily.

It was then they both heard a rustling outside. Casey put a hand on Simon’s arm and they stilled for a moment, waited to hear voices of the others. There was nothing. But then the door began to rattle and shake. 

“I’ll take care of it,” Casey said confidently. And to be fair, he wasn’t gone long -- he said that there was a small zombie crawling along the perimeter of the fence, but he’d taken care of it. Nothing to worry about. 

Simon was relieved -- but then he spotted a small bloody scratch on Casey’s arm. “What the hell is that?” 

“It’s not a big deal,” Casey said dismissively. “I don’t even know if the zombie made this scratch. It could’ve been a post or something.” 

“Being willfully ignorant isn’t going to help us,” Simon pointed out. 

“Look, it doesn’t matter anyway,” Casey said, turning away from him. His handsome face troubled. Simon reflected that when the world had ended that he really should have been checking more into how Casey had been feeling about all of this. 

“Casey, if you become a zombie, I’m not going to be able to kill you. You get that, right?” 

“When the chips are down, you would.” Casey looked serious. “I believe in you, Simon.” 

*

But Casey -- handsome, loving Casey, was dead wrong. Simon had never had it in him to do the hardest thing. That scratch had been a zombie bite and it had taken Casey over, little by little. Yibai and Aleki had tried their best to kill him, but Simon wouldn’t let them.

This was their honeymoon, after all. _It couldn’t end like this. _


End file.
